Vijayaragavan Venkatarathinam

Always lost in thoughts. books, farming, small towns and villages. Built @freshworks_crm and now platforms at @FreshworksInc.

[vijayaragavanv]

Gravity, The Martian, Art of resilience and victory of human will.

Yesterday, I watched “The Martian”. It’s a space movie where the astronaut Mark Watney gets left out in mars while on a mission and how he plots his way back to earth. I am a sucker for space movies. Interestingly, it took me back to the past.

It was 2013. My startup had failed. I had invested in my startup, all that I had saved during my 2 year stint at the first job. It needed more capital, so I borrowed some money. Also, there was a family health emergency and I borrowed more money. Once my startup went bust, I was broke big time and by then, I had borrowed more than I can manage. I found a job right after but it didn’t change my financial status quo. Within 5 months, I gave up on the job as I didn’t like it and was back to unemployed bench.

Every day of 2013 was brutal. I had to make a hard decision of shutting down my startup. “How did you know that its time to do so?” — This is a common question that is asked to a cricketer who has just announced his decision to retire or a startup founder who has decided to get acquired or a startup founder who has decided to give up on his dreams. Well, You sort of know that in your heart. Once this inner peace manifests, the decision will follow. But still it’s a painful process to go through. Once decided, I executed it which was even more painful. Then I found a job and it was a spectacular flop. I was unemployed and in dire need of a job. As is, I was broke financially and was struggling to repay the borrowed money. All this in one year.

I started looking for jobs and couldn’t find any right away. Few people whom I counted didn’t deliver. None of the interviews went my way. So, there I was waiting for that one miracle that will help me come out of my rabbit hole and see the light at end of the long, dark tunnel. But, it never came.

My parent’s were getting frustrated and it grew as days went by. One day, I lied to my parents that I was going to an interview and instead, decided to roam around the city of chennai, quite mindlessly. In the morning, I went to express avenue mall and made my way to Escape cinemas. I wanted to watch some movie. I booked a ticket for this english movie — “Gravity”. It was a luxury to spend Rs.120 on a ticket, back then. But I watched it. Then something happened.

After the movie got over, I felt very different. I realized that the movie affected me deeply. Initially, I presumed that it is the usual after-effect post watching a good movie. But it stayed with me. The idea of resilient will of a woman who made it to earth from deep space despite all odds. Later the day, I went to the beach and let it sink in.

Within a week, I landed an awesome job at a fast growing startup. I am still part of it growing professionally and personally. I am not saying that watching “Gravity” helped me land a job. Definitely, No.

But, it put me in touch my inner self. Back in the beach, I realized that at the end of the day, I wanted to survive this chaotic phase. I wanted to come out of it and not give in. “Get busy living or get busy dying”.

During this tumultuous period, I experienced all of negative emotions such as failure, depression, loneliness, fear, helplessness in various degrees. Not for just a day, but for over a year. But, I had few great friends who were there for me whenever I needed them and I am very grateful for it.

Usually, such journey is a lonely one. The long nights, empty stare and hopelessness are the norm. I am not the only one who underwent such things. There are countless people who have gone through or going through it. In fact, their problem might be much graver than what you or me faced in our lives. Every human who has taken birth on this planet will go through one or more negative emotions at a given point in time.

Recently, I saw this ted talk where the speaker talks about how we don’t care about our psychological health like we do our physical health. It is true in every sense.

During tough times, we need support from family and friends to help us stay afloat. You need someone to pat you in the back when something positive happens or to act as a sounding board or to slap you when you screw up something. In short, you need someone to keep you sane. Because, loneliness will rear its ugly head. It will derail our thinking and drive us to do things that we would normally squirm at.

It is perfectly ok to seek professional help. Don’t worry about the stigma associated with it in the society. Sometimes, its better to deal with it through professionally trained people.

If you are going through a failure, then the normal reaction would be to approach anything with caution. This can go to an extend where you will refuse to take a step forward as the recent failure will be in back of your mind. If we stop there and don’t take a step forward, then life stays as it is. But if we overcome the fear and take a step forward then we can change life for the better. We always have a choice when we are going through a failure and that very choice will separate winners from the rest. When AR Rahman won oscars for Best original score and Best original song, he said in his acceptance speech — “all my life I had a choice of hate and love. I chose love and I’m here”.

Of course, we undergo a lot of stress and anxiety. But beyond a point, it doesn’t matter. Like MS Dhoni would say “It’s like having 100kg put over you. After that even if you put a mountain, it will not make a difference.”

It is always darker before the dawn. If you feel helplessness, it’s perfectly ok. Give yourself a break and don’t beat yourself to death emotionally. But import thing is not to give in. Giving in is the thing that kills people and their self esteem and not the failure itself. Believe that, This too shall pass.

Remember, “Once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.”

I wrote this piece to share my story of failure, depression, loneliness, fear, helplessness, so that it can help someone who is going through it right now. It might help someone to come out of it and shine in their life. More such stories are required to bring awareness.

If you know of someone who is going through a bad phase, make it a mission to help them out. They badly need it but they can’t ask for it. Please volunteer and be what they want you to be. In past, it might be that there was no one to help you when you were going through a bad phase. Do you really want this person also to go through the same? Please drop your ego and help them out. Who knows, you might have saved a person from suicide or depression or from going on a bad, dangerous path. It is our responsibility to help such people. We have to instil hope in their minds and help them figure out the art of resiliency.

[vijayaragavanv]

A new year wish from a Tamil cinema fan.

In Tamil Nadu, since 1950's, Dravidian politics has gained immense popularity among masses and continues to do so. If you want to know how popular it is, then google for the list of chief ministers of TamilNadu. Since 1967, the state has had a chief minister either from Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) or Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK). DMK and AIADMK were offshoots of Dravidar Kazhagam, which spearheaded the Dravidian movement in Tamil Nadu.

What is more interesting in it is the closely interlinked journey of Tamil cinema and Tamil Nadu politics. To give a perspective, five of the seven chief ministers(C.N.Annadurai, M.Karunanidhi, M.G.Ramachandran, Janaki Ramachandran, J.Jayalalitha) have/had links with Tamil cinema. They were either leading actors or screenplay writers.

Parties used plays and movies as a medium for spreading propaganda. It was an easy and effective way to reach masses and spread their ideology. Yesteryear leading actors such as MGR and Sivaji Ganesan were deep into politics and MGR went on to become Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. This was 1950 to 1975. Then in 1975, Tamil cinema underwent a transition and new actors came into the scene. While Kamal Haasan didn’t exhibit interest in politics, RajiniKanth has been harbouring life long wish of entering politics. It is still alive and evident in his movies.

Fast forward to 2015, we had Karthik Muthuraman, Vijayakanth, Sarathkumar and couple of others go on to float a party and fight elections. A lot of other actors have joined existing political parties. In what has been eras of Duumvirates(two leading actors who are dominant in that period — MGR-Sivaji, Rajini-Kamal), Vijay and Ajith are two dominant actors since last decade.

What started as a medium to spread the Dravidian movement propaganda, had taken a serious turn to further the cause of an individual and his/her long harboured wish to enter politics and taste power. Tamil cinema and its movies have become an entry ticket and a stairway to politics. There are songs and scenes that praise the good deeds of the actor and how great and godsend he is. Tamil cinema and politics has been inseparable since 1950's and still is.

Actors voice their opinion in any issue related to common people of Tamil Nadu. They sit on hunger strikes. This is all good and should be appreciated. But it doesn’t stop there. Heroes continue to churn movies with a strong scent of political agenda and they belter out dialogues which ultimately comes down to “I will give my blood and even my life for the welfare of common man”.

I am that common man. I am one of countless common man in Tamil Nadu.

Nothing good has ever come out of worshipping an individual. It is even worse when that individual actively seeks for it. Power might be intoxicating at first but it’s a suicide.

Actors can get their fans to do some constructive work for the society instead of milking every ounce of their dignity by taking advantage of their naivety. There are actors who do lot of constructive work and their work should be well appreciated. But some of them still advance their self cause of entering politics. At the end of day, actors will achieve their political aspirations(in the process make ton of money) and fans will be cheated.

There is strong stats that tamil people too want movies that have solid stories. They have encouraged lot of neo-noir films and films that have different screenplays. Beyond the hero, still story and screenplay matters. Movies that had great ensemble of actors but with a weak story and shabby screenplay have failed spectacularly. But movies with relatively unknown or new entrants with good story and superb screenplay have reaped rewards. Jigarthanda, Soothu Kavvum, Naduvula Konjam Pakkathula Kannom, Sathuranga Vettai, Netru Indru Nazhai, Kaadhal, Pizza are few examples.

Why can’t tamil movies be made for just for what it is, that is, to entertain people where they can cry and laugh their hearts out. It seems that tamil people too want to watch such movies that are devoid of furthering political aspirations of its heroes. When will our heroes learn?

[vijayaragavanv]

Why I am writing this as my first book.

My 2015 was an awesome year. There were many occasions to celebrate and reflect upon. There is another new year that is waiting to unfold. From my growing days, I had a long harboured wish of writing. I dabbled in it for many years. I write whenever my muse takes me over. There is this sudden surge of mental activities where words start to flow seamlessly and fingers seems to capture every bit of it. I get such a joy and a ‘high’ while writing.

I am writing this post because my muse has taken me over, once again. When last year dawned, I decided to make a habit of writing often with the goal of writing atleast a week. Also I wanted my writing to reach more number of people and possibly build a network of followers.

Mostly, I achieved both the goals. I created a publication “The Last Lecture” and started writing in it regularly. It has crossed 6400 followers and counting. Also, I wrote many essays which is where my heart is. There were discussions and responses around those essays. People seem to have liked it. To sum it up, I am happy with how I have progressed with my writing.

Journey of a writer

There is a typical journey of anyone who writes. Initially, you read from many sources, especially from lot of books. Every day, there are interactions with others. Then there are your lessons from success and failure of various events in life. At times, you travel to a different city. All these things influences you. You start to form your own opinions and rationale.

Along this ride, you start to pick a tone, a voice in writing. And it is unique. But it takes years to find it. Once found, it forms the soul of your writing. After years of writing regularly, it starts to flourish. My goal has been to find that tone and I believe that it has started to emerge. It will take years to sharpen it and I am willing to patiently try it out.

All of my writing experiments in 2015 have reaped good results and has given me confidence to continue more elaborate and bolder experiments in 2016 as well. They say ‘New year, New beginnings’. I have decided to make a new beginning by writing something that I have been living with for the past three years. It has been nagging me every single day and given me sleepless nights. There are days when it has blew me away with sudden sparks of ideas. It’s something that I want to tell to the world. They say, if you want to write a book, then it has to come from within. You don’t start to write a book on one fine morning. You have to live with it for months together and sincerely believe you have a story(if there exists one) to tell the world.

Yes. I have to decided to write a book, tentatively titled — Book #1. So, what is it about? For this, I have to tell you a story.

The Startup Story

I was a naive 23 year old when I started up. We began well. We didn’t startup for wrong reasons such as being my own boss or to get rich like those internet moguls. Also we didn’t want to add to the ever-growing, ever-present statistics of people, by eternally sitting on an idea. We went ahead and built a product from ground up.

Nothing gives you the high like building something you envisioned. During a lifetime, very few people get to build something that’s theirs. It’s even rare if they get to do it more than once.

Until launch, we were in this happy period thinking that ‘Build. They will come’. Once we went to market, we soon realized the hard knocks of business, that is, product-market fit. We validated few of our assumptions and yet we didn’t close any deal.

Product-market fit was elusive. We realized that we were not building what people want, not the version that they will use. We went back to drawing board and built a new version. This time, response was better and we managed to close quite a handful of deals for few months. But again, we were not able to build a sustainable revenue channel. Again we went back to drawing board, and decided to build again. But that version never saw the end of day.

While starting up, we never took cognizance of the fact that we needed enough money to take off from the runway. We ran out of money and were not able to raise further rounds of investment. This led to infighting between co-founders and it turned ugly. We scaled too fast and did few things too soon. We did all this for that one elusive breakthrough. In hindsight, what we did was to throw a hail mary pass. Eventually we shut shop and moved on.

Why I am writing this book

The best advice I got for writing a book is to articulate the idea of your book in one page. This one page document will act as your true north. Here is my true north —

Most of startups fail for three reasons — running out of cash, co-founder fighting (usually one leads to other) and not building what people want. It is true that you learn lot out of failures and I am extremely happy to have embarked on that crazy journey of entrepreneurship.

Unlike the prevailing notion of celebrating failure by ‘Fail Fast’, failure hits you quite hard. It is devastating on many levels and has a deeper impact on your personal, financial and health fronts. It is a rabbit hole and you will never know when you will see light at the end of tunnel.

During the same time, I was noticing lot of glorification of startups and romanticising the idea of entrepreneurship. Popular media spins lot of tales about a twenty-something guy going on to found a billion dollar company and living life king-size. But what they don’t tell is for every successful entrepreneur there are thousands of others who fail. Their stories are never told. Instead, they sell the idea of mass entrepreneurship and send an unprepared person to go through a soul crushing, wilderness trip without understanding the vicissitudes and fundamentals of entrepreneurship.

Further, people who advice on startups are those who don’t have an ounce of experience in entrepreneurship. They are fence walkers, cheerleaders who haven’t taken risks by starting up.

9 out of 10 startups fail. Whole venture capital industry is built on the fact only 1–2 startups in their portfolio give 10x returns. A few startups give 2x return. Rest of the startups are loss making ventures.

Often people who startup fixate on their idea claiming that it will revolutionize the world. Though it is a good start to have a great idea, it doesn’t help you go all the way. Execution of the idea defines the success of a startup.

These, along with, my tryst with failure, got me into thinking mode. I did an objective study of what went wrong. I read lot of books and spoke to past and present entrepreneurs. I worked for few startups. Currently, I work in a fast growing startup. Something began to dawn on me. It started to emerge that success of startups can be traced back to consistently committing to fundamentals. However different the startups are, fundamentals remains the same.

So I wrote a blogpost compiling a list of fundamental learnings titled ‘Hundred things that I learnt while building my startup’ and published it, hoping it makes some resonance. But what followed was beyond my expectations. Entrepreneurs and ‘want-to-be’ entrepreneurs responded positively and wrote to me in droves. As a result of that post, I got couple of jobs too. This gave me confidence and bolstered my belief that people could identify with my theory and appreciate it. Thus, that blogpost became a minimum viable product(MVP) for writing a book.

I started looking for inspiration from other fields where sticking to basics and improvising on it is practised. ‘Kaizen’ caught my eye. Kaizen is a process of continuous improvement made famous by Japanese industries especially by Toyota’s production system. Lean Startup was partly inspired by kaizen.

Startups can’t be run like a traditional business. Because startups operate on a high level of uncertainty in trying to build and launch a product and create a repeatable and sustainable business. Principles practised in behemoths doesn’t work in startups. This was an inspiration behind Lean Startup. It gives you a blueprint on how to apply lean startup principles and build a successful startup. Eric Ries is the architect of lean startup and he devised a methodology where he believed entrepreneurship is a kind of management that can be taught and learnt.

Lean startup gave words to my thought process post my startup debacle like it had done for hundreds of entrepreneurs all over the world. But I felt that there was a greater scope to extend and extrapolate on lean startup by concentrating more deeper on lot of smaller yet fundamental things.

What are the fundamental things that I am talking about?

Though it is very well known that founder issues are one of important reasons of failure of startups, there was no definitive information to how to choose your co-founder.

It is imperative to have financial plan for your family and your startup for atleast an year. You can’t starve your family while you chase your dreams. Also you need to bootstrap initially. Heedless of the awaiting disaster, founders plough on with their idea.

You have to be two-face. Though you should love your solution for a problem statement that you are solving in your startup, you should not obsess on it. Love your problem, not your solution.

These are the smaller things that I refer to. Often, these smaller things are ignored and ridiculed. We think that these smaller things will not impact on a larger level and don’t give it’s due importance.

Startups don’t achieve success on a bright monday morning. As Jim Rohn, famous entrepreneur, author and motivational speaker, would say, “Success is a few simple disciplines, practiced every day. While failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day”. When you aggregate gains on lot of smaller things, over a period of time, it will be the difference between success and failure. It is very similar to compounding of wealth.

This theory has been around for some time and is called “aggregation of marginal gains”. It was made popular by Sir Dave Brailsford during his stint in Team Sky and British Cycling Team.

Sir Dave Brailsford was the Performance Director of British Cycling. He adopted a methodology wherein if you start improving 1% on everything and anything that goes into riding a bike, those small gains would add upto considerable improvement. He was proved right when Britain went on to win two cycling gold medals in 2004 Olympics, their highest tally in cycling event in any olympics since 1908. In 2008 and 2012 Olympics, they dominated the proceedings by winning eight gold medals.

In 2010, he joined Team Sky, a cycling team as General Manager and Performance Director. He faced an arduous task of turning things around and ultimately winning the coveted ‘Tour De France’. He applied his ‘aggregation of marginal gains’ practise and orchestrated consecutive Tour de France victories of Team Sky in 2012 and 2013.

Thus evolved my theory from its elementary state. So the higher order bit is

a) consistently sticking to fundamentals, those little things in running a startup

b) improving atleast 1% on everything wherein small gains would add upto considerable improvement over a period of time.

This will be precisely what I will be exploring in depth in this book. Now, I am waiting for my muse to take over for the entire year of 2016 and help me write my three year dream.

[vijayaragavanv]

#100 — What I learnt by writing 100+ posts in a year

When I look back, it seems I have written over 100 posts this year. When this year started, I didn’t have any lofty goal of writing 100 posts but I wanted to write a lot. As another year goes by, it gives a immense satisfaction after the 100+posts run. During this, I learnt a couple of things —

Do not wait for inspiration to strike to create some work — There is a saying by Chuck Close, “Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work”. It is true. You have to show up everyday and write, no matter what. Make it a habit.

Write consistently. You will get many followers — Initially, there were hardly any followers. I was writing every day and there was nobody waiting for it to be published. Slowly, they started to trickle in. As days went by, it started to gain momentum and then they came in droves.

It’s an immense responsibility to run a publication. — There were days when I didn’t have the motivation to write one more post. This continued for few days. Suddenly one of your follower asks you about your absence in his feed. Then I’d sit up and write. Sometimes, I have cross posted ideas from few of my other long form posts. People notice that too. So, be responsible.

Write often. You will find your voice. — Every writer has an unique voice. They will pick this up over a period of time. But it comes only when you put in scores of work.

Experiment constantly. — I experimented constantly with kind of content that I write. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn’t. I improvised on those that worked and it helped in producing quality content to readers.

P.S. Thanks for being part of the journey this year. A new year beckons and let there be new beginnings. A Happy new year!

[vijayaragavanv]

#99 — Control how the days starts.

I am a morning person and I wake up around 5–5.30 AM every day. Within minutes, I switch on wifi and connect to it from my smartphone. Bam! There are tons of notifications and email. I sincerely check each one of them. I reply to those pressing emails and slack channels. Mostly social media walls are my news feeds. Each post is varied and ‘feels’ to be very important. I read it one by one. There are those posts that will take to many other posts through their inlinks. I follow each one of them. After sometime, fatigue sets in and thought processing slows down.

As soon as I wake up, I stopped peeking into my smartphone and never switch on wi-fi. Instead, I take a stroll outside my building and start jogging. Then I meditate for a while. Still no smartphone in my hand. Then I read some newspapers and a book. Now I take my smartphone for my allotted 10 minutes time. Then I get back to life, do some errands and proceed to office. After reaching office, I start replying to those pressing emails and slack channels.

Throughout this experiment, I had a nagging feeling to get hold of my smartphone and connect to internet. Some times I resisted and at times I gave in. Initially, it was frustrating to let go. But gradually, it felt ok and thus became the new normal.

[vijayaragavanv]

#98 — Practise ‘no internet’ day

Recently I visited my hometown which is a sleepy little town located in the southern coast of Tamil Nadu. I was not able to connect to internet for three days. Initially, it was difficult to comprehend. Back here where I migrated to make a living, I am connected to high speed internet every second of a day.

Once I got back home from my hometown, I was thinking how it’d be if I practised the same, that is, No internet for a whole day. This day, I will strictly have it for myself. I can do whatever I want, except connect to internet or use any digital device. I will not pick up my smartphone or laptop unless there is an emergency. The frequency of no internet day can be per week or per month based on your comfort level.

In west, there are many attempts to do exactly this. They call it Internet Sabbath.

[vijayaragavanv]

#97 - Write the things that you’d savour anytime in your life.

I read this list by Leo babauta and had a smile after I was through with it. There are things in your life that gives you happiness or a high or satisfaction. It can as simple as taking a walk in the morning. It can be taking your kid to the school. It can be a book in one hand and a tea in the other. It can be spending time with your love.

Then I had a question, What if, I too started writing a list of things that I savour in my life that can’t be bought with just money. I request you to do the same and I assure you that you will be in for a surprise of your life.

[vijayaragavanv]

#96 - Questions to ask when you want to make decisions.

With decision making, how do you know when you are making the right decision? Has anything been helpful in helping with decisions? — when asked to Marissa Mayer, Yahoo

In 1999 when I was looking for a job, it was a crazy time in Silicon Valley. Google was my 14th offer and I had a hard time deciding. I had offers from startups, to teach, in management consultant, etc.

I made a list of all of the best decisions I made (going to Stanford, switching to symbolic systems, working at SRI, and working at UBS’s research lab) and tried to understand what each of these decisions had in common. For me the best decision were ones that:

Made me work with the smartest people I could find — Smart people challenge you, make you think differently, make you justify your decisions, and ups your game.

Did things that I wasn’t quite ready for yet, which pushed me further than where I was today

When you do things you aren’t entirely ready to do — you find out a lot about yourself. I’ve always surprised myself and learned about things I was good at which I didn’t realize I would be good at. These two things helped guide me to my decision to join both Google and Yahoo.

P.S. When I read this, I was quite surprised and found it as a different yet interesting perspective on making decisions.

[vijayaragavanv]

#95 - Be on Maker’s Schedule

The world operates on two times — maker’s time and manager’s time. Manager’s time is mostly filled with meetings, each for an hour. Their day is essentially split into several block of one hour and they would be happy to accommodate several meetings in a day.

Maker is someone who creates something of value. A developer, a writer, an artist, an architect. Everybody is a maker. They operate differently from a manager. Maker’s time is not split into one hour chunks. They need undivided attention for a considerable period of time running into several hours.

I have struggled to create anything of value if I operate on manager’s schedule. I will be writing code for developing a feature and lo and behold, there comes a meeting. The focus will be gone and is difficult to get it back If I convene again after the meeting.

It is important to recognize that there are two schedules and figure out the schedule that we belong to. Once done, we should respect others who are in a different schedule than ours. And it is mutual.

P.S. I had a vague idea of this for quite sometime. Then I read these and was blown away — link1 and link2

[vijayaragavanv]

#94 - Embrace the suck

At times, We might be anxious that our efforts are not reaping expected results. Lets pick writing as an example. You might be into writing and expect large readership. In your initial years, the readers will start to trickle in. But it might not be good enough for you to get motivated. If you have felt the lack of motivation anytime in your life, then read on —

“If you keep doing a thing over and over again for long enough, you will develop a unique skill for it. You need not possess anything outside of the discipline to work at it every day. This is the essence of Zen. You simply do what you have to do without thinking of results. Play guitar for an hour a day and in a year you’ll be able to play shows. Paint a bit each day and you’ll have a portfolio before you know it.

The key is to enjoy the benefits of embracing the suck without caring about the results. Just let your art come out, let your relationship skills develop, let your business acumen build at its own pace. Don’t force it and don’t pretend to be someone you’re not. Don’t pretend to be a genius. No one is a genius. There are just people who know how to get things done and people who don’t. Go on — get off the internet and do something you’re bad at. Embrace the suck.” — http://www.thedailyzen.org/2015/06/28/embrace-the-suck/

[vijayaragavanv]

How I stopped wasting my life and got it back. You too can.

I am a morning person and I wake up around 5 - 5.30 AM every day. Within minutes, I switch on wifi and connect to it from my smartphone. Bam! There are tons of notifications and email. I sincerely check each one of them. I reply to those pressing emails and slack channels. Mostly social media walls are my news feeds. Each post is varied and ‘feels’ to be very important. I read it one by one. There are those posts that will take to many other posts through their inlinks. I follow each one of them. After sometime, fatigue sets in and thought processing slows down. At this point, I take a break and set out to do some physical activity. I religiously save rest of the articles to my Pocket reading list presuming that I will read it when I am free. As the day progresses, now and then some nicely written post catch my eye and I am on it. Then something pressing comes up and I leave it either having read a fair bit or full of it, but without forming any actual thoughts on it.

This is a typical life of anyone in the age of smartphone. Click. Click. More clicks. But all for nothing.

Though we consume a tons of information, do we really sit back and think about it? The time we spend to concentrate on a topic, think and reflect upon it over a fixed amount of time is non existent. It has really been a long time since I sat back and let my thoughts form on an amazing blog post that I read a while ago. What I read a while ago is lost for ever. Nothing gained in terms of knowledge or skill. It has been reduced to a zero sum game and is a greatest trick that the devil ever played. Death of thinking.

Who is to be blamed? Each one of us. Why do we do this? Fear of missing out. We don’t want to miss out on that thing which might get us the lucky break. It might give an idea for a startup that we have been waiting for. It might make us look like a fool when we are not aware of a happening thing during a chat with a group of people.

At any given point, We all know what we can know and what we want to know. It is just that we have to apply from what we already know. We don’t allot time to process that. We consume and consume, but forget to produce and reduce ourselves to facts junkie. I am afraid where we will end up, if we just consume and consume but not produce. Probably in an asylum.

After some pondering, I started to do some experiments to get my life back on track.

Experiment #1 — Control how the days starts.

As soon as I wake up, I stopped peeking into my smartphone and never switch on wi-fi. Instead, I take a stroll outside my building and start jogging. Then I meditate for a while. Still no smartphone in my hand. Then I read some newspapers and a book. Now I take my smartphone for my allotted 10 minutes time. Then I get back to life, do some errands and proceed to office. After reaching office, I start replying to those pressing emails and slack channels.

Throughout this first experiment, I had a nagging feeling to get hold of my smartphone and connect to internet. Some times I resisted and at times I gave in. Initially, it was frustrating to let go. But gradually, it felt ok and thus became the new normal.

Experiment #2 — Avoid clicks while and after reading something

My second experiment was to avoid clicks after click. I read the same amazing blog post, step back now and then to process the information. After reading, I form my own thoughts and thereby ideas. Sometimes I might agree with the point of view but think further to have my own well formed ideas on that topic. At times, I disagree but with solid and rational counter points.

Experiment #3 — A file to note down little sparks

My third experiment was to maintain a spark file. I borrowed it from here. Often, while reading a blog post, talking to a colleague, taking bath or driving to office, there are barely formed little spark of an idea. Give it a minute, it is long gone from your limits of mind. It is like a developers eternal search for a reason for that line of code that they wrote a month ago. I decided to note down all such little sparks and revisit it often. When you revisit, some ideas might be laughable. But few ideas might connect and become something concrete. But very few ideas might take the air from the room and leave us completely silent, like Jony Ive said in his famous tribute to Steve Jobs. This blog post is result of one such idea.

Experiment #4 — Avoid distractions and practise 30 minutes burst mode

I love to do multitasking and in fact, I boast about it all the time. But for quite sometime, I realized that there was a serious dip in my productivity. I was frustrated and felt really bad.

I would be writing some code. Then I will be reading something from my pocket reading list and writing down an idea in my spark file. I would start playing a song. Suddenly, I will realize that I had digressed from writing code. At times, I will not remember what I was doing at the first place.

I confused distractions with multitasking. I decided to switch gears and started to work in bursts. I will work for 25 minutes straight with just the task in hand. Then take a break for 5 minutes. Then another 30 minutes burst. Every two hours, I take 10–15 minutes break and I go for a walk.This way I was able to maintain the momentum and enjoy optimal productivity.

During such bursts, there will be distractions that you can’t control. There will be meetings or one of those 100 other reasons. It is perfectly normal. Instead of trying to control it, just go with the flow and try to get back to 30 minutes burst as early as possible.

Experiment #5 — It’s OK to be bored. It’s the last privilege of a free mind.

Recently I visited my hometown which is a sleepy little town located in the southern coast of Tamil Nadu. I was not able to connect to internet for three days. Initially, it was difficult to comprehend. Back here where I migrated to make a living, I am connected to high speed internet every second of a day. I was bored throughout my stay there.

Likewise, occasionally we will feel bored. There will be nothing to do. We will be either crouching in sofa or curling up on the bed. For many years, I felt ashamed to be in such a state. I often found ways to keep myself occupied. I wanted to be productive every second of the day. I wanted to be engaged with one activity or the other. I was very frustrated if I wasted even a minute in a day.

Then I read this and was blown away. To sum it up, it says “Boredom is not a problem to be solved. It’s the last privilege of a free mind. Lean in to boredom, not your smart phone screen. You’ll learn more about yourself and the world around you than you think. You know the best antidote to boredom? Think.”

I decided not to keep myself engaged all the time. It is ok to be bored. Instead, I started to think when bored. I made peace with myself that it is going to take time to be successful. It is ok to take things slow. Everything in life can’t be a fast moving highway.

Experiment #6 — Practise no internet day.

Once I got back home from my hometown, I was thinking how it’d be if I practised the same, that is, No internet for a whole day. This day, I will strictly have it for myself. I can do whatever I want, except connect to internet or use any digital device. I will not pick up my smartphone or laptop unless there is an emergency. The frequency of no internet day can be per week or per month based on your comfort level.

In west, there are many attempts to do exactly this. They call it Internet Sabbath.

Experiment #7 — Practise silence every day.

Silence. These days, there is absolutely no possibility for it. I made sure that I practise silence for at least 15 minutes in a day. During this time, I usually meditate. You can go to a nearby park. The bottomline is that you can pick your own tool for practising silence. I am very early in the process. So I can’t comment with authority. But it sure has brought in much needed clarity and peace.

These are the experiments that I have done lately to prevent death of thoughts and get things back in control. My productivity has improved and there is inner calmness. All my experiments might not be possible to do at a stretch. You can identify a problem that you want to overcome and pick a corresponding experiment. Do that experiment and try to make it as a habit. If you want some help in creating habits, then follow the seinfeld strategy. In due course, after finding what works for you, you can create a variant of an experiment. I look forward to hear from you what worked and what didn’t work.

[vijayaragavanv]

#93 - What is your idea?

Pic: Thanjavur Big Temple.

It’s amazing what people can create. Their creation still stand tall amidst the test of times. Why do they do it?

Well, this question is the very basis of existence of human life. Some people are constantly urged by the idea of creating something that touches people’s life. By creating, they ascend to the gates of immortality and claiming a permanent seat, thereby living beyond their time after death.

So, the question that we should ask ourselves is — What is your idea?

[vijayaragavanv]

#92 - There are no instant results. Accept with patience that it’s going to take time

Often, we expect instant results in this fast paced world. But results can never be instant. It takes time and insane amount of patience and discipline. We overcome great resistance and start something new. In the midway, we just give up because of boredom and frustration. But that is when we have to endure and push harder. Usually it takes a considerable number of years for us to create or do something meaningful.

Time it takes to reinvent yourself: five years. Here’s a description of the five years:

Year One: you’re flailing and reading everything and just starting to DO.

Year Two: you know who you need to talk to and network with. You’re Doing every day. You finally know what the monopoly board looks like in your new endeavors.

Year Three: you’re good enough to start making money. It might not be a living yet.

Year Four: you’re making a good living

Year Five: you’re making wealth

Sometimes I get frustrated in years 1–4. I say, “why isn’t it happening yet?” and I punch the floor and hurt my hand and throw a coconut on the floor in a weird ritual. That’s ok. Just keep going.

- James Altucher in one of his ultimate guide.

P.S. Originally posted here

[vijayaragavanv]

#91 - Pursue audacious goals.

When we pursue a goal, there is always pressure. During the journey, there might be false starts, failures, setbacks. We might think of giving up. Those who endure become successful. When it is given that there is always going to be pressure, why not pursue audacious goals. Those goals which improve existing condition by 10X or even 100X times.

This is what MS Dhoni had to say when asked about playing cricket for India.

“It’s like having 100kg put over you. After that even if you put a mountain, it will not make a difference.”

MS Dhoni, Captain of Indian ODI Team, Former Captain of Indian Test Team

[vijayaragavanv]

#90 - Live and Let live.

“My wife wants me to eat fish, she says it is delicious. But I don’t like fish, so that is that. I find liquor has a bitter taste, so I don’t drink alcohol but understand that other people enjoy it.”

MS Dhoni, Captain of Indian ODI Team, Former Captain of Indian Test Team in an interview to Wisden India.

P.S. You can read this interview in detail here.

[vijayaragavanv]

#89 - Concentrate on the process rather than result. Don’t take it seriously. Keep it simple.

“I love my country. I tell my wife she is only the third most important thing after my country and my parents, in that order. The point is that while I am an Indian cricketer I will devote myself to that cause. Cricket is not everything, not by any means, but it is a large part of who I am. Therefore I want to play in all formats of the game and to play as much as possible because before long it will be over. Then I’ll focus more on the Army!

I believe in the process more than the result. If you are properly prepared, physically and mentally, committed to the task and fully engaged in the moment, then I have no problem with the outcome. It is not about 95 per cent at this level and with this much exposure, it is about 100 per cent. A dropped catch is fine if you were focused and in the moment. It becomes a problem to me if you are not. I live for the moment, not the past, not the future. People ask about my remaining ambitions. They are simple. I want to keep playing well and to win. I want the Indian people to be proud of us.”

MS Dhoni, Captain of Indian ODI Team, Former Captain of Indian Test Team in an interview to Wisden India.

P.S. You can read this interview in detail here.

https://medium.com/@vijayragavanv/89-concentrate-on-the-process-rather-than-result-don-t-take-it-seriously-keep-it-simple-bf4a6fda0310

[vijayaragavanv]

#88 - Do this skill finding exercise and I bet you are in for a surprise of your life.

If we ever had coffee and I asked you what your skills are, you’d probably tell me one of two things:

1. I don’t know what my skills are.

2. I don’t have (m)any.

The goal of this exercise is to create a list of our current skills so that we know what we have to work with, what might be missing and what we want to improve.

Step 1: Write Down Ideas

I don’t want your cards to be perfect. I just want you to write.Step 1 is all about quantity. One skill per card, as many cards as you can come up with. To get started, here are some questions you can answer about your skills:

What are you good at?

2. What comes naturally?

Step 2: Look for patterns

Now that you’ve got a few skills labeled you’ll start to notice something: Some of the ideas are related.

Group them in the way that works best for you. Maybe you want to group yours by “Skills I love doing,” “Skills I get paid the most for,” “Skills I want to improve” or “Skills I haven’t used in a long time.” Don’t worry if you don’t come right out of the gate with some patterns. If this is your first go-round with an activity like this, you shouldn’t be great at it yet. Try tweaking this exercise to make it work the best possible way for you.

The point of the note card exercise is to generate two different things: Hope and awareness.

Jon Acuff

P.S. You can read it here in detail. If you like it, his book Do Over will interest you.